GIJoe

[anarky]

Anyone heard anything about a Volume 26 paperback?

Volume 25 collects up through issue #285. The series is ending with #300 very soon, leaving 15 uncollected issues.

We already know IDW has lost the license, presumably at the end of 2022, but I've not heard anything that absolutely confirms that date. Transformers has already ended and there's two more collection forthcoming (including the collection of Last Bot Standing).

But there's absolutely no info on collecting the last several Joe issues. And we've already seen from IDW losing Star Wars that not only are they totally wiling to leave issues uncollected, but there's no guarantee that the new publisher will pick those up. (There was a paperback's worth each of three series that IDW never collected, and Dark Horse seems to have no interest in collecting, even though two of them are vital to the cross-publisher High Republic story. I've had to order one from England, just saw confirmation that the second would be published in England, and no one seems to know about the third yet.)

My shelf is going to look like shit with one collection missing at the end, but there's nothing solicited, and it's not especially likely they'll drop one unexpectedly.

[Tom Foolery]

Kirkman’s Skybound imprint is bringing Larry Hama back to continue his ARAH run.

Cool beans.

[Tom Foolery]

Apart from Hama’s continuing ARAH series, Skybound is slow rolling out new Joe continuity.
The new Duke mini started last week. After his wingman is smooshed into jelly by Starscream right in front of him, Sgt Hauser is joining fringe conspiracy cults who also have seen the “giant robots” and it leads him to Dr Adele Burkhart. Then she and her entire group are killed by sinister agents of MARS. Hauser escapes and General Hawk sends his team of hunters after him; Stalker, Cover Girl, Rock’n’roll.

I dislike Duke very much, but this was an intriguing reinterpretation of the origins of the Joe team.

[Tom Foolery]

A companion miniseries to go with the Duke mini, Josh Williamson is doing a Cobra Commander mini. He’s leaning into the Cobra-La mythology. Cobra Commander is a human living with the Atlanteans or whatever, but the twist is he’s got the captured Megatron and is reverse engineering Cybertron Tech to take over the surface world for Cobra-La, and insists Golobulus give him a new title to go with his new job…Cobra Commander. Also, the guy sent along to be his handler is referred to as Grunt. Not sure if that’s supposed to be THE Grunt, or if it was just a coincidence. But he could’ve referred to the guy as thug, goon, etc. Grunt seems specific.

Anyway, I never dug the retconned Cobra-La shit, but if you’re gonna have Transformers and Joes in the same universe, might as well go whole hog.

[Ran]

I don't even remember the whole thing about Cobra-La in the cartoon. It seems like somewhere around 1986-ish they went from GI Joe being military based to some weird fluorescent science fiction.

[Tom Foolery]

I don't even remember the whole thing about Cobra-La in the cartoon. It seems like somewhere around 1986-ish they went from GI Joe being military based to some weird fluorescent science fiction.

Were Chux still here, he could give you more thorough explanation of the clusterfuck of how Cobra-La came to be, but the short version is the writer had a bunch of placeholder ideas of Cobra Commander’s secret origin. One of them was “Shangrila” as CC’s hometown except he was clever and called it cobra-la temporarily and a nondescript exotic location like the himilayas, again temporarily. The execs came back and they were like ‘we love it!” and the writer was like ‘no, thats not…its just placeholder names. They’re stupid.” And the execs were like “not anymore!” and the writer was like ‘ffffffffuck’

[Ran]

The question isn't weather or not the people in charge of the GI Joe and Transformers cartoons were on drugs. The question is how many and what kind did they take. I wasn't sure how much of it leaked into the comic books. Were the 80s comic books basically toy advertisements too?

[Tom Foolery]

The question isn't weather or not the people in charge of the GI Joe and Transformers cartoons were on drugs. The question is how many and what kind did they take. I wasn't sure how much of it leaked into the comic books. Were the 80s comic books basically toy advertisements too?

Yeah. But the guy who wrote all the FileCard bios was also writing the entire 155 issue run, so there was consistency. But yes, Hama would have to introduce new action figures. The ones he liked he would keep using. The ones he didn’t would get backburnered almost immediately.

[Tom Foolery]

Duke 3 and Cobra Commander 2 both came out. I gotta say, I’m digging what Williamson is doing with the Joe-verse within the new Energon-verse.

CC tracks the energon signature to the Everglades and crosses gunfire with the Drednoks, and the ending alludes to maybe Croc-Master showing up next issue.
Meanwhile, Destro sends Major Bludd to the Pit to recover the captured Duke, and he, the also imprisoned Baroness, and the proto-Joes who caught him, have to team up to fight Bludd’s Bluddhound soldiers. Baroness shoots Bludd in the eye.

The non ARAH Joes have sucked for so long, It’s weird to be reading good Joe comics.

[anarky]

I don't even remember the whole thing about Cobra-La in the cartoon. It seems like somewhere around 1986-ish they went from GI Joe being military based to some weird fluorescent science fiction.

Were Chux still here, he could give you more thorough explanation of the clusterfuck of how Cobra-La came to be, but the short version is the writer had a bunch of placeholder ideas of Cobra Commander’s secret origin. One of them was “Shangrila” as CC’s hometown except he was clever and called it cobra-la temporarily and a nondescript exotic location like the himilayas, again temporarily. The execs came back and they were like ‘we love it!” and the writer was like ‘no, thats not…its just placeholder names. They’re stupid.” And the execs were like “not anymore!” and the writer was like ‘ffffffffuck’

Eh, that's pretty much it. Cobra-La was just objectively fucking terrible.

I didn't see the movie for a couple of years, and didn't realize that so many characters from that year debuted in the movie. I met cartoon moron Lt. Falcon, silly Tunnel Rat, bimbo Jinx, fucktard Chuckles, and dipshit Law & Order only after experiencing them all as badasses in the comic, and, let me tell you, that was quite the fucking shock. At least I knew about the cartoon turning Bazooka into a fucking tenth-wit who makes Marjorie Taylor Greene look like a fucking Rhodes Scholar. And I hate Sergeant Fucking Slaughter. Okay, "hate" might be strong, but he was an absolutely ridiculous deus ex machina in the cartoon, and it was awful.

Duke 3 and Cobra Commander 2 both came out. I gotta say, I’m digging what Williamson is doing with the Joe-verse within the new Energon-verse.

CC tracks the energon signature to the Everglades and crosses gunfire with the Drednoks, and the ending alludes to maybe Croc-Master showing up next issue.
Meanwhile, Destro sends Major Bludd to the Pit to recover the captured Duke, and he, the also imprisoned Baroness, and the proto-Joes who caught him, have to team up to fight Bludd’s Bluddhound soldiers. Baroness shoots Bludd in the eye.

The non ARAH Joes have sucked for so long, It’s weird to be reading good Joe comics.

Good to hear. I've got the first trade of Vold Rivals, but haven't read beyond the first issue. (It seems like a mediocre cut-and-paste story with a random Jetfire cameo.) Mixing Joe and TF is always a gamble. And, even though people seem to be hailing it as the second coming of Jesus, this time bringing nachos, everything I read about the TF series sounds like fanfic rehash of the same old shit, and the art I've seen isn't exactly impressive. At least, love it or hate it, IDW tried to be different from the very beginning. (They just couldn't stick with which "different.")

Which reminds me, I have the entire run of that second series and still haven't been able to bring myself to read it. The cancellation of Lost Light still hurts too much.

[Tom Foolery]

Void Rivals is ass. It’s a lame derivative Enemy Mine rehash. But everything Kirkman does is derivative trash.

[Tom Foolery]

The Energon Universe FCBD offering has three short stories. The TF one was Megatron getting betrayed, captured, and escaping from Cobra-La.
The Void Rivals one has a Hot Rod guest appearance propping up the weakest of the books.
And the Joe one has Baroness in a cheeky Captain America type uniform as she “joins” the Joes. The next two minis replacing Duke and Cobra Commander are Scarlet and Destro. I am liking this approach to the buildup of the Joe portion of this interconnected universe.
I’m also liking them keeping the story to just 4 different books every month. Now if they could just cancel that shitbox Void Rivals(maybe one of the magoos can see a button that says ‘do not push’ and then he pushes it and their entire planet explodes and then they never mention Void Rivals again. That would be a choice ending. Do it in like Issue 1..what? Oh they already passed that one? Well issue 2 then—oh that’s also already done? Well shit, anyway….) and replace VR with like a second TF book or literally anything else besides VR that would be great.